"Welcome, hero!"
Before he knew it, he was summoned to another world… again.
An ethereal white realm, a self-proclaimed goddess, an offer to become her champion, the classic trope he had seen so many times in anime and hentai.
God those words felt nostalgic.
But that wasn't all. Even the System he had once broken was back, glowing screens appearing before his eyes.
[Accept New Patron Goddess? Y/N]
[Passive Sense Skill Activating!]
[Slave Contract Detected!]
…
"No thanks."
How many times had he said those words? How many times had they been ignored?
Sighing, he sharply refocused...
This was no goddess.
The eyes were wrong: greedier, hungrier, predatory. They matched the scheming grin as she opened her mouth.
"Oh? Aren't you a shy one? Hehe, that's why I chose you to be my Hero. Amongst all the others, I chose you, and only you <3."
Her tone was sweet, her eyes anything but. She clearly saw him as prey, unable to hide her desires, almost cute in her hunger.
And as she waved a dainty hand, images rippled across the realm. Students. All young, sixteen maybe. All of them in the most banal of classrooms.
"See? That's you right there."
Yes. Yes it was.
But he barely recognized himself. Young, a smile full of hope, one that even reached his eyes. Damn those eyes! As dark as his black hair, yet still full of a naivety that would have been endearing had it not disgusted him. Now all he saw was weakness. And as he observed "himself", he felt her.
She came behind him, as one would a family member, or a lover… or perhaps both. Then she waved once more, the scene in the replay changing abruptly. A glowing, magical circle burst open, engulfing it all. Chuckling, she pointed toward the "him" on the screen.
"While everyone panicked, you stayed calm. While the girl next to you fell, only you helped. While the homeroom teacher was cut in half by the magical boundary, you wept yet kept your composure."
Right, that phase…
And as he almost laughed, she circled around him, facing him…
"This world you're going to is dark, you know? Without a patron deity, you won't make it. Let big sis protect you, won't you?"
Her tone carried the warmth of poison, and he couldn't help but smile. The monsters were as pretty as ever. This one especially.
She was so pretty he couldn't have described her even if he tried– her appearance changing in real time to best entrap him… And it got worse with the Perception Alteration spell so he wouldn't notice the fuckery. Deadly for anyone who didn't know better.
But there was a trick…
[You've Focused Your Mind!]
[Activated Mental Image]
[Natural is BEST!]
…
'Let's see your real face.'
He stripped her disguise not because he had to, but because he could, an outrageous being soon revealed.
Pink flowing hair. Pink eyes. Pink wings. Pink tips. She was also dressed modestly– so modest she wasn't wearing anything. Which still didn't distract from her claws stained with fresh blood… ?!?
And as she aimed said claws at his head, she purred akin to a cougar.
"Let big sis here see all of you…"
[Status Forcefully Revealed!]
.
.
.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STATUS]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Gray Bright (16)
Tamer (Unranked)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BODY 27 (STR 8, DEX 9, CON 10)
SOUL 38 (CHA 14, INT 12, WIS 11)
Soul Power: -99999
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GIFT: UNKNOWN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Good, all of it was as expected, the fake Goddess showing clear interest.
"Oh? A tamer? That's good. That's very good. I'm definitely the one you want to follow. Gray, is it? I can teach you tons of Taming Techniqu–"
"WAIT WHAT?! This shouldn't be possible. A negative soul power?! And what's with that nonsensical value?! Taming's impossible without Soul Power! It would make you… defective?! Worse than trash!?"
Worse than trash for sure…
Except she actually wasn't done…
"WAIT A MOMENT, UNKNOWN GIFT?! Hehehehe, I can feel it's gonna be something good. And it's all gonna be mine. How many would spit on it, but not me. I'll wring you dry, boy <3. Time to dig in hehehehe."
Her claw flew once more.
"Stop."
A weak arm caught her wrist, stopping it in midair– not with strength but with the casual disregard it showed.
"Oh? You want me to stop? Too bad. This train's just getting started! <3"
Her gaze said it all. She would uncover his secrets. She would make him her slave. She would utterly break him. And there was nothing he could do about it.
"Hehe. Let's play predator versus prey <3"
The realm went quiet. Even the light forgot how to move. For the first time in ages, he almsot felt sorry for what was about to happen.
[NEW GIFT: SUFFERING!]
[NEW GIFT: SUFFERING!]
[NEW GIFT: SUFFERING!]
….
"ARGGG?!!!"
"You just had to look…"
The tired voice that came out didn't belong to a 16-year-old youngster; it couldn't. And neither did the gaze that looked at the succubus as if a piece of meat on barbecue– that's all that would soon remain, her beautiful features already turning white with dread.
"YOU WHAT DID YOU?!?"
Then she saw it. The gift? It was no gift. It was merely his memories, painful ones. And they didn't end.
A youngster summoned 500 years ago in a strange land. A young tamer full of hope. Trash nonetheless. 500 years of trying. 500 years of ridicule. 500 years of abuse in a world that stole everything from him.
500 years of....
"How are you still alive?!" The succubus painfully croaked.
The memories kept flooding her. Jaw clenched, she tried enduring it all, tears, snot and puke already overflowing.
To the strongest of beings, there was nothing worse than being helpless, something his memories were bombarding her with.
He had always been the weakest, to the very end. That's what made it so unbearable, the worst yet to come.
Images flashed. A deal with a primordial being synonymous with Agony. A path only a devil would walk. A power no mortal could wield. A power that devoured him. A power most cursed...
"Make it STOP!"
He wouldn't. He couldn't.
She had opened it, now she'd see it to the end, that's how memory raiding worked.
Her eyes started bleeding, pure suffering turning into big droplets of red blood full of Mana. It wanted out. As for him, he was merely a bystander now, sighing to no one.
"The best is yet to come…"
He knew what she was seeing. A hopeless fool turned into a magical catalyst… for Agony. Brewing it inside him. Taking it all in. Becoming far less than human. All for the foolish dream of rebirth. Worth it.
"It's something only the weak can endure…"
The tears of blood grew bigger. Then they turned into a pool, a lake, and finally an ocean of blood– filling the entire realm except a certain human. Not because he was strong, but because he was too insignificant to register, for now.
And as a youngster watched, a certain succubus sank to the very bottom of what was already turning into a blood sea, her dying screams turning to air bubbles.
Those air bubbles lived. Struggled. Died pointlessly. He watched them rise and fall thinking of nothing in particular.
But then a smile found its eah to his lips as a low, worn-out chuckle escaped him.
"Fake Goddess, I have a riddle for you..."
"What did the foolish succubus say to the Reincarnator?"
"Blub– Blub– Blub–"
"Exactly."
He half-heartedly joked, only to instantly turn serious. For all that spectacle, he was still as worthless as before, not that he'd have it any other way– how else could he redeem himself?
Except he already had a plan…
In his previous life, he had failed as a Tamer. This time he'd become a Monster from the start.
After all, if morality hadn't saved him in 500 years, it didn't deserve a 501st.
'Humanity's overrated anyway' he mused, the annoying system chiming in.
[Sub Realm Owner Defeated?!]
[Returning to the Real World!]
[Prepare for Transfer!]
…..
"The ruins, eh…"